Green Party Education Committee 25 February 2013 Biography of Petra Kelly Petra Kelly was a principal founder of the German Green Party, a prominent advocate of nonviolence and women's rights, and a prolific writer who authored Fighting for Hope and Thinking Green: Essays on Environmentalism, Feminism, and Nonviolence. Born in American-occupied Germany in 1947, Kelly moved with her family to the United States in 1959. She studied international relations at American University and campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy in the 1968 elections. After taking her degree in 1970, Kelly returned to Europe and obtained a master's degree in political science from the University of Amsterdam in 1971. Subsequently, she worked at the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium from 1971-1983, and during that time was actively involved in the German worldwide anti-nuclear, anti-war, and feminist movements. In 1979, Kelly helped to found the German Green Party as “a non-violent ecological and basic- democratic anti-war coalition of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary grassroots oriented forces.” As one of the national chairs from 1980 to 1982, she helped the party rise to prominence so that by 1983 she and 27 others from the Green Party had been elected to the West German Parliament. In 1982, Kelly received the Right Livelihood Award "for forging and implementing a new vision uniting ecological concerns with disarmament, social justice, and human rights." From 1983- 1990, she represented the Green Party in the German parliament, where she served on committees on disarmament, human rights, neutrality, and foreign policy. Kelly was murdered in 1992. The controversial circumstances of her death are debated to this day. Local police determined that she was murdered by her partner, Gert Bastian, who then killed himself, though many believe that both were victims of a politically-charged, double murder. .